“Divorce and Remarriage”

(Matthew 5:31-32)

Introduction: The last time we were in the Sermon on the Mount, we were considering what
Jesus taught regarding the seventh commandment. The seventh commandment says, “You shall
not commit adultery” (Ex. 20:14). Jesus said that the Pharisees and scribes were teaching this,
but this was as far as they were willing to go. They missed, in other words, the spirit of the law,
that it prohibited not only wrong actions, but also wrong thoughts and intentions. Those who
listened to their teachings might have thought that they were righteous according to the Law,
simply because they kept from the act of adultery. But Jesus said that simply looking on a
woman with inappropriate thoughts was to commit adultery in your heart. He said that we can
break the commandments and become guilty before God in our hearts. Certainly every sin
which we commit takes place in our hearts first. Jesus also told us what we are to do about this
sin, if we are to escape judgment. He said we must cut off the members of our bodies that
offend. He said you must pluck out your right eye, and cut off your right hand. He said it is far
better for you to do this, than to go whole into the fiery hell. Now He did not mean this literally,
for cutting off parts of your body won’t solve your sin problem. But what He meant was that
you must put to death the corruption in your soul which causes you to sin. He said that we must
all put it to death, or we will be cast into hell. I would remind you what the apostle Paul wrote
in his letter to the Romans, “So then, brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live
according to the flesh--for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the
Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live” (8:12-13). If by the Spirit
you are cutting off the members that sin, you will live eternally. If you do not put to death every
sin, if you do not repent of them all, if there is one sin that you still cherish and refuse to put off,
one that you are not even struggling against or trying to overcome, that one sin is enough to undo
you forever. But if you are in Christ, that will not be the case with you, for everyone who has
savingly embraced Christ has been given the Spirit of God, and the Spirit creates in His people a
hatred for every sin, and a love for all righteousness. The child of God will not allow even one
sin to remain in his life without a fight, because he hates it, and he knows how much God hates
it. And so the Christian will not allow even his thoughts to violate God’s commandments
without a battle. He will not indulge in his mind those things which he knows are wrong.
But there is one other thing that Jesus points to here, and that is the letter of the Law. We
must not forget that even though the Law of God goes beyond the letter to the spirit, or the
inward thoughts of man, the letter is still very important. The Jews appeared to believe that if
they kept from the act of adultery while married, that was enough. And so if they found that
they were no longer satisfied with their wives, and wanted to be freed from them, they would
give them a certificate of divorce, send them away, and then marry another. But Jesus is going
to show them that in most cases, this too was sin on their part. He gives here only one ground
for a divorce between two members of the covenant community here, and that ground is sexual
uncleanness.
So that I won’t be misunderstood here, I believe that the Lord reveals one other ground for
a divorce in the Scripture. And I believe that where there is a legitimate divorce, there is the
right of remarriage. What I would like to do is to expound first what Jesus says here, and then
to look at other parts of Scripture to get the full picture before you of what the Lord teaches on
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this topic which is very relevant to our age.

I. First, let’s take a look at what the teachers of Israel were saying. Jesus said, “And it
was said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of dismissal.’”
A. Now this is a shortened quotation from the OT Law in Deuteronomy 24:1.
1. What Moses wrote was this, “When a man takes a wife and marries her, and it happens
that she finds no favor in his eyes because of some indecency in her, and he writes her a
certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out from his house, and she
leaves his house and goes and becomes another man's wife, and if the latter husband
turns against her and writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends
her out of his house, or if the latter husband dies who took her to be his wife, then her
former husband who sent her away is not allowed to take her again to be his wife, since
she has been defiled; for that is an abomination before the LORD, and you shall not
bring sin on the land which the LORD your God gives you as an inheritance” (Deu.
24:1-4).
2. This law, which was given in Old Covenant Israel, I believe is still in force today. But
Jesus says that the teachers of Israel had distorted its meaning.
a. Moses wrote that to put the woman away, there must be some “indecency” in her.
The Hebrew literally means some shamefully uncovering of herself. What does
this mean?
b. One school of interpretation, that of Shammai, believed that this “indecency” meant
infidelity. To uncover someone’s nakedness in Scripture often refers to having
relations with that person. Jesus tells us here that he was right.
c. The other school, that of Hillel, stretched the meaning of the word to include
anything in the wife which might be offensive or disagreeable to the husband.
d. Now the Jews much more readily accepted this second interpretation as the right
one. And we shouldn’t think that this is strange, for the sin which is in every man
will always try and compel him to choose the loosest way, the easiest interpretation,
because as long as sin still has room to move and express itself, it will continue to
live.
e. But Hillel was wrong, and in teaching his position on divorce, he fell under the
condemnation which Christ speaks of in 5:19 of Matthew, “Whoever then annuls one
of the least of these commandments, and so teaches others, shall be called least in the
kingdom of heaven.”
f. We must close up the gap on sin. We must not allow it any freedom. We are
called by Christ to cut it all off, to put it all to death.

B. Notice how appropriate this subject is to our modern world. The Bible will always
remain relevant to our culture, because sinful human nature does not change, unless
changed by the grace of God.
1. At the very beginning of our United States, in the New England colonies, divorce was
only allowed on the strictest of grounds, those which I will give you in a few moments.
a. This was the case both in the church and in the state.
b. Several years ago, when Donna and I met her brother Dale in Yuma, Arizona, for
the day, we visited the old state prison. We found that at the turn of the century,
adultery was a crime punishable by imprisonment, and there were many people who
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were imprisoned there for that very reason.

c. This is because at that time there was still a very strong Christian consensus.
People still believed the Word of God somewhat, and they feared the Lord enough
for culture to be affected by it.

2. But what of today?

a. Today, the school of Hillel reigns once more. If a person wants a divorce, it can be
obtained for just about any reason. I’m not even sure that a reason is even required
anymore.
b. With the ascendance of evolutionary theory, and the death of God movement, which
was brought about by the Enlightenment, the fear of God has departed. Men no
longer believe in a transcendent God who is just and holy and who will one day
bring them into judgment for their sins.
c. Because of this, they are not afraid to put away their wives or their husbands. They
are not afraid to commit open adultery while married, and they even glorify this kind
of behavior in movies and on television.
d. And they are not content with these gross forms of immorality. Men burn with lust
toward one another, and women do the same, and commit abominable acts of
perversion. And what does the state do about it? They are even now in the process
of making laws which will protect the rights and freedoms of these people to commit
the very acts which will one day bring about the destruction of this country at the
hands of God. They are also striving to make it illegal for any church to oppose it,
or for any minister to speak out against it. I understand that in Canada now it is
illegal for a minister of the Gospel to read Romans 1, because of its strong
condemnation of the homosexual.
e. We live in a grossly immoral age. It is therefore very important that we do all that
we can to walk uprightly in this world, hating, as Jude said, even the garment which
is polluted by the flesh. We must live in this world, but we must not be a partaker
of it, lest we share in its eternal destruction.

II. So then, what are we to do? What is to be our standard of conduct in this area?
Jesus answers, “But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except for the
cause of unchastity, makes her commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced
woman commits adultery.”
A. Again, as I’ve said, Jesus here endorses the school of Shammai. What exactly does He
mean here?
1. Let’s consider what He says first without the exception clause.
a. He says that everyone who divorces his wife makes her commit adultery.
b. What He means by this is that if a man--and I believe this refers to a woman as
well--if a man divorces his wife for less than biblical grounds, and his wife marries
someone else, she commits adultery, but he is the cause of her committing adultery.
In other words, she sins by her remarriage, but he is responsible for her sin. She
was married to him, and for no reason of her own was thrust out of the marriage.
And now finding herself without means of support, and without the means to satisfy
her needs, she marries another. In doing so, she commits adultery. But it was her
husbands fault. The same thing would be true if a woman divorced her husband for
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less than Scriptural grounds. If either of them remarry, they commit adultery, and
the one who brought about the divorce is responsible for it.
c. Furthermore, the one who marries the one who was put away also commits adultery.
The reason their marriage is adulterous, is because the first marriage covenant is still
intact, it has not yet been broken. The husband, by putting his wife away with a
writing of divorce, does not by this break the covenant which he and his wife made
before God. Jesus says here that there must be sexual uncleanness to break it.
Therefore, when the woman marries another man, she is still seen by God to be the
wife of the first man. When she remarries, therefore, she commits adultery against
him.
d. The same is true if either of them remarry under these circumstances. This is why
Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 7:10-11, “But to the married I give instructions, not I,
but the Lord [which means that Paul is drawing here upon what Jesus said in the
Gospels], that the wife should not leave her husband (but if she does leave, let her
remain unmarried, or else be reconciled to her husband), and that the husband should
not send his wife away.” It is sin on their part to separate in the first place. Paul
says here that if it does happen, they must not remarry, for this would constitute
adultery. Instead they should work toward reconciliation.
e. To put it simply, if any man or woman, whether they profess Christ or not, decide to
divorce their spouse on less than biblical grounds and to marry another person, they
commit adultery. I would guess that most of the divorces today, whether in the
church or without, fall under this category. The seriousness of this is seen by what
Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10. He writes, “Or do you now know that the
unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither
fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals [here is
another verse that Canada, in its wickedness will need to outlaw], nor thieves, nor the
covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, shall inherit the kingdom of
God” (1 Cor. 6:9-10).
f. Listen to what God’s Word says this morning. No matter how much anyone
believes that they have God’s blessing on their marriage, if they have divorced and
remarried on less than Biblical grounds, they have become adulterers, and adulterers,
if they do not repent and turn to Christ, will not inherit the kingdom of heaven, but
hell instead.
g. Jesus says, If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.

2. But now let’s consider the exception clause which Jesus gives here, “except for the
cause of unchastity.”
a. Jesus says here that if a man divorces his wife, because she is guilty of some kind of
sexual uncleanness, then he does not cause her to commit adultery, if she remarries.
I do not believe that the man is required to divorce her, if she repents. But if she
does not, it is the righteous thing for him to do. In this case, the guilt is all hers.
b. Furthermore, though it is not mentioned here, I believe that the man is free to
remarry. Jesus says in Matthew 19:9, “And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife,
except for immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.” Jesus says
that if he divorces his wife for any other cause than immorality, then he commits
adultery when he remarries, because his first marriage covenant, as I said before, is
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still intact. But if she commits an act of immorality, this breaks that covenant, so
that a man may justly and righteously put away his wife, and be free to remarry, of
course, only in the Lord (1 Cor. 7:39).
c. I think the same thing would be true for the woman who is put away by the man for
any reason less than adultery. If her previous husband marries another woman, then
he commits adultery against her, thus freeing her from her previous marriage
covenant and leaving her free to remarry.
d. But remember, if the divorce was obtained on any other grounds than that of sexual
uncleanness, then neither party is free to remarry. They must remain single until
such a time as they reconcile with one another.
e. One final thing that I would like to clarify is what is meant by the word “unchastity”
which Jesus uses here. The word is actually broader than “adultery.” It means
sexual immorality of any kind. The word in the Greek is “porneia,” from which we
get the word pornography. It can refer to adultery, homosexuality, bestiality, and
any other form of sexual perversion. Any of these sins therefore constitute a
violation of the marriage covenant and provide the grounds for a biblical divorce.

B. Let’s consider now one other grounds for a divorce and two other grounds for a
remarriage.
1. Paul tells us that there is another case in which a divorce can take place and the
believer can remarry, and that is the case of a believer married to an unbeliever, where
the unbeliever wants to leave the marriage.
a. Paul writes, “If any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live
with him, let him not send her away. And a woman who has an unbelieving
husband, and he consents to live with her, let her not send her husband away. For
the unbelieving husband is sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife is
sanctified through her believing husband; for otherwise your children are unclean,
but now they are holy. Yet if the unbelieving one leaves, let him leave; the brother
or sister is not under bondage in such cases, but God has called us to peace. For
how do you know, O wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you
know, O husband, whether you will save your wife” (1 Cor. 7:12-16)?
b. I just want to point briefly to three things: 1) That if the unbeliever wants to stay,
they may stay, and the marriage is intact. 2) That if the unbeliever wants to leave,
they may leave, and the believer is commanded not to stop them; “let them leave.”
But remember, they must leave because of Christ in you. You must not drive them
away. And 3) the one who remains is free to remarry without sin, for they are no
longer bound to that person.
c. That’s clear enough, but what about the case where two professing Christians are
married and one of them leaves and refuses to be reconciled? This passage answers
that question as well. If the one who leaves persists in this sin, the church will
eventually excommunicate him, thus declaring him to be an unbeliever, leaving the
remaining spouse free to sue for a divorce. That one may they remarry. This is the
first additional ground for a divorce and a remarriage.

2. The second ground for a remarriage is a simple one: if your spouse dies, you are free
to remarry.
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a. Oddly, there are some who even deny this.

b. But Paul is very plain, when he writes in 1 Corinthians 7:39, “A wife is bound as
long as her husband lives; but if her husband is dead, she is free to be married to
whom she wishes.” But note this condition, “Only in the Lord.” If you are a
Christian, you may only marry a Christian.

3. Having said all of this, these last questions still remains, What if you are the guilty
party in the divorce? Can you remarry? Or what if you have married another man or
woman illegitimately, and have committed adultery against your spouse? Is there
forgiveness for you?
a. I believe that the Bible is very plain on this point. Jesus said in Matthew 12:31,
“Therefore I say to you, any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven men, but
blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven.” Now don’t get side-tracked by
the blasphemy statement, so that you miss the other part of this verse: “Any sin and
blasphemy shall be forgiven men.” The exception is the blasphemy of the Spirit.
But that does not refer specifically to adultery.
b. I would draw your attention to one other verse. Paul, after writing that fornicators,
idolaters, adulterers, effeminate, homosexuals, thieves, the covetous, drunkards,
revilers, and swindlers shall inherit the kingdom of God, writes, “But such were
some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in
the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:9-11).
c. This is the glory of the grace of God. Whatever your sins might be, whether they
are the gross sins of homosexuality, or that of adultery, or any other sin, if you
confess your sins and forsake them and believe on Jesus, He will cleanse you from
all of your sin and give you eternal life. There is no sin which can damn you if you
truly repent. And with regard to the blasphemy of the Spirit, if you had committed
that, you would have no interest in repenting, your heart would be so hardened.
d. But I would draw your attention to the fact that you must acknowledge your sin and
repent of it. If you know that what you have done is sin, and pridefully refuse to
own it as sin and turn from it, there will be no forgiveness for you. You must repent
and forsake your sin and come to Christ. He receives only the penitent, those who
know they have sinned and freely confess it.
e. Now how does this apply to the guilty party in a divorce situation? If you are
guilty of adultery, or any other sexual sin for which your spouse divorced you, you
need to repent and turn to Christ. If you do, your sins will be forgiven. If your
former spouse is still unmarried, I believe that the best thing to do would be to try
and reconcile with your spouse. If they refuse, then this is a sin that they need to
repent of. But what if they have remarried? It appears to me that then you are free
to marry another. What would there be to stop you? Does God consider you
married to another person who is married to still another person? No. Your former
marriage covenant is broken. You are free from it. You are free to remarry.
f. But what if you have committed adultery by divorcing your spouse and marrying
another person? Is there forgiveness for you? Yes. If you repent and believe on
the Lord, you will be forgiven. But does repentance mean that you need to leave
your new spouse and go back to your old one? No. You can’t do this. The
Scripture, as we have seen, forbids this. Does this mean that you will be living in
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perpetual adultery as long as you are married to your current spouse? No. Your
previous marriage covenant was broken. You are no longer married to your former
spouse, but to your new one. It was the guilt of having committed adultery which
made you an adulterer. But once that is removed in Christ, you are no longer an
adulterer.
g. People of God, there is forgiveness in Christ for the worst offender. There is no sin
which can condemn you, if it is truly repented of in Christ. Maybe you aren’t guilty
of such gross sins, but all of us have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
And if you are in Christ this morning, you have been freely forgiven of all. Let us
give thanks to the Lord for His love and mercy, and let us give to Him an acceptable
offering of praise, through a life wholly devoted to Him. Let us pray.